San Diego border sector struggles to keep up with record-setting migrant surge — over 230K this year

The San Diego border is facing a record-setting surge of migrants, prompting US border officials to establish a new outpost in the city to help accommodate the massive number of migrants caught crossing the border, according to reports.

More than 230,000 people were apprehended crossing the US-Mexico border in the San Diego Sector — which stretches 60 miles from the Pacific Ocean to around the town of Jacumba Hot Springs — marking a 20-year high for the area, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) numbers.

To help deal with the increase, CBP established an auxiliary staging hub to help organize transport for migrants and make sure they are sent to cities where their sponsor families live, according to Fox 5.

Many of the migrants there were hoping to head to the East Coast, while some said they were going to try their luck in Los Angeles first.

Near Jacumba, The Post saw about 300 migrants gathered around campfires on the American side of the border fence Monday night. By Tuesday morning, their numbers had swelled to over 350.

Those migrants were seen slipping through a weak point in the border fence, where the 30-foot tall structure abutted a rock face and left a wide gap that had been plugged with concertina wire.

Migrants had easily brushed aside the coils of sharp wire and clambered with ease through the opening. About 40 people passed through the gap on Tuesday morning, though it is unclear how many came through under the cover of darkness.

The San Diego Sector has a robust fence network along the border, but a CBP representative near Jacumba explained there were still vast swaths of the desert terrain that remain open or have weak points and need to be patrolled in person.

Last week, President Biden allocated $950 million to upgrade and repair the border wall across California, Arizona, and Texas, after previously vowing not to build “another foot” of border wall during his presidency.

Beyond basic repairs to the fence and filling in gaps, the funds will go towards new “detection technology” intended to enhance Border Patrol agents’ ability to effectively stem the flow of illegal immigrants pouring into the country.

The 2023 fiscal year was a record-breaker for crossings all along the southern border — at least 1.5 million migrants made it into the US, with some estimates from the House Republican Committee on Homeland Security reaching as high as 1.7 million.

About 900,000 of those people were allowed into the country legally after being apprehended and granted humanitarian parole — which allows them to apply for asylum — while more than 600,000 so-called “gotaways” slipped across the border without being captured by border patrol agents, according to figures from CBP.

Nearly half of the migrants camped in Jacumba on Monday night were Chinese, matching a recent trend that has seen soaring numbers of Chinese nationals crossing illegally into the US through Mexico.

A record-setting 24,048 Chinese nationals were apprehended by CBP along the southern border in 2023 — a 7,000% increase from 2021 when just 323 were caught.